At some unspecified time or times during the past year, three readily identifiable antique oriental carpets have disappeared from a private collection in Europe. An appropriate reward is offered for information leading to their successful recovery.
In the hope that the rugs can be recovered without unnecessarily involving the authorities, HALI has been asked to spread the word of the loss, and to ask readers, wherever they are, to notify us, in confidence, if they see any or all of the three rugs being offered for sale at auction, in a gallery or rug store, online, or even in an innocent third-party collection.
The three rugs in question are: (1) an early 17th-century red-ground small medallion Ushak (118 x 155cm), published in Spuhler, König and Volkmann’s Old Eastern Carpets, Munich 1978, no.10; (2) an unusual green-ground example of the same genre (95 x 150cm), which was exhibited at the Kunst und Gewerbe Museum in Hamburg in 1950 (no.39) and more recently published in Herrmann’s Seltene Orientteppiche VII, Munich 1985, no.3; and (3) an 18th-century white-ground Caucasian runner (121 x 298cm), previously sold by Christie’s in London in June 1983 (HALI 5/4, p.539, fig.26) and published later the same year in Herrmann’s SOT V, no.21.
